To Mass Effect 3 players, from Dr. Ray Muzyka, co-founder of BioWare
As co-founder and GM of BioWare, I’m very proud of the ME3 team; I personally believe Mass Effect 3 is the best work we’ve yet created. So, it’s incredibly painful to receive feedback from our core fans that the game’s endings were not up to their expectations. Our first instinct is to defend our work and point to the high ratings offered by critics – but out of respect to our fans, we need to accept the criticism and feedback with humility.
I believe passionately that games are an art form, and that the power of our medium flows from our audience, who are deeply involved in how the story unfolds, and who have the uncontested right to provide constructive criticism. At the same time, I also believe in and support the artistic choices made by the development team. The team and I have been thinking hard about how to best address the comments on ME3’s endings from players, while still maintaining the artistic integrity of the game.
Mass Effect 3 concludes a trilogy with so much player control and ownership of the story that it was hard for us to predict the range of emotions players would feel when they finished playing through it. The journey you undertake in Mass Effect provokes an intense range of highly personal emotions in the player; even so, the passionate reaction of some of our most loyal players to the current endings in Mass Effect 3 is something that has genuinely surprised us. This is an issue we care about deeply, and we will respond to it in a fair and timely way. We’re already working hard to do that.
To that end, since the game launched, the team has been poring over everything they can find about reactions to the game – industry press, forums, Facebook, and Twitter, just to name a few. The Mass Effect team, like other teams across the BioWare Label within EA, consists of passionate people who work hard for the love of creating experiences that excite and delight our fans. I’m honored to work with them because they have the courage and strength to respond to constructive feedback.
Building on their research, Exec Producer Casey Hudson and the team are hard at work on a number of game content initiatives that will help answer the questions, providing more clarity for those seeking further closure to their journey. You’ll hear more on this in April. We’re working hard to maintain the right balance between the artistic integrity of the original story while addressing the fan feedback we’ve received. This is in addition to our existing plan to continue providing new Mass Effect content and new full games, so rest assured that your journey in the Mass Effect universe can, and will, continue.
The reaction to the release of Mass Effect 3 has been unprecedented. On one hand, some of our loyal fans are passionately expressing their displeasure about how their game concluded; we care about this feedback, and we’re planning to directly address it. However, most folks appear to agree that the game as a whole is exceptional, with more than 75 critics giving it a perfect review score and a review average in the mid-90s. Net, I’m proud of the team, but we can and must always strive to do better.
Some of the criticism that has been delivered in the heat of passion by our most ardent fans, even if founded on valid principles, such as seeking more clarity to questions or looking for more closure, for example – has unfortunately become destructive rather than constructive. We listen and will respond to constructive criticism, but much as we will not tolerate individual attacks on our team members, we will not support or respond to destructive commentary.
If you are a Mass Effect fan and have input for the team – we respect your opinion and want to hear it. We’re committed to address your constructive feedback as best we can. In return, I’d ask that you help us do that by supporting what I truly believe is the best game BioWare has yet crafted. I urge you to do your own research: play the game, finish it and tell us what you think. Tell your friends if you feel it’s a good game as a whole. Trust that we are doing our damndest, as always, to address your feedback. As artists, we care about our fans deeply and we appreciate your support.
Personally, the ending left such a bad taste in my mouth that I haven't been able to go back to the game for a week. Which is too bad as I thought the rest of the game was brilliant. The Magic-Space-Kid-from-left-field was bad enough, but the Joker/Shep's girlfriend/Squadmate on a jungle planet in the middle of no where thing was just mindblowingly stupid.
That's not to say I think they should change it, I feel the same way as the IGN guy (albeit without all his amazing doucheness). As a person who's created things that have been well received and things that have been poorly received, it's unfathomable to me to believe anyone should change their creative decisions based on public reactions. That said, they should be aware (and as the above quote reads it seems they are) that they let a mega-fuck-ton of people down, myself included.
Jeff Gurstman was talking about it on the giantbomb podcast last week and summed it up nicely, saying that the ending didn't live up to it's pedigree. Mass Effect 2 had a similar problem, but in the opposite direction. There you had two games steeped in lore, story and NPC interaction that ended in a giant robot boss fight. But at least that was part of the lore of the universe, that the Reapers create new versions of themselves based on the races they absorb. And in retrospect, how cool would it have been to see a bunch of 200 ft. tall human reapers dropping down and smashing Earth as opposed to the Sovereign style crab Reapers? Magic-Space-Kid-who-offers-3-options-that-all-lead-to-the-same-ending seemed like it was pulled from their ass. I'd be interested to hear the reactions from their QA teams, I'd like to see if any of them said in their QA reports, "Man, that ending fucking blows." I find it hard to belive that it passed through so many hands that everyone thought it was a good idea, as it seems from reading excerpts from Geoff Knightly's 'The Last Days of Mass Efect 3,' iOS app.
It'll be interesting to see what they do with DLC, and more interesting to me personally to see if I'm that big of a sucker to buy it.
The game itself is freaking amazing.It's just the last part of the game that people really hated.Did Bioware even pay attention to the previous games?Where are the results from all the decisions you made from before?What were they thinking with that ending?ME games are all about the decisions and the end of ME3 you didn't have a choice to make your own decision.Do you really think Shepard would not question the little shit just a little bit?Again they didn't give you that choice.Total bullshit.
The game itself is freaking amazing.It's just the last part of the game that people really hated.Did Bioware even pay attention to the previous games?Where are the results from all the decisions you made from before?What were they thinking with that ending?ME games are all about the decisions and the end of ME3 you didn't have a choice to make your own decision.Do you really think Shepard would not question the little shit just a little bit?Again they didn't give you that choice.Total bullshit.
I totally agree with the Shepard questioning the Starchild. I was - and still am after 2 viewings - fine with MY ending. All of the stuff that was presented fits relatively well within the established lore of the ME universe, it was just executed very clumsily. I just wanted to ask 'well, if you created the Reapers, who/what exactly are YOU?'
As for results from decisions? They are all in there, but to a much more subtler degree. If anyone dies at the end of ME2, they are not in ME3, and thus not available to recruit as a war asset, thus making your job of increasing that number even harder, and locking out certain ending choices. (Hell, synthesis isn't even an on the table if it isn't high enough and if you are too Renegade.) There's a whole sequence with Conrad Verner that if you hadn't purchased a specific vendor license from ME1 you wouldn't get that war asset either.
Did you know that there is a possibility that Tali will commit suicide? Or that the entire Quarian race can be wiped out before you even get to Thessia? All based on previous actions from the previous games. If you saved the council in ME1, you see the Destiny Ascension in one of the cut scenes at the end.
I said this on another forum, but I think the issue behind the issue is that the ME3 ending revealed the ILLUSION of choice that we thought we had throughout this entire series. Bioware pulled a great magic trick in making us think that our choices really mattered, but in the end, we are merely choosing between slightly different paths to the same end. And alot of folks are pissed off that the Wizard is really just an old man turning a crank and that the sausage is not really sausage.
Garnett Lee said it best on the last Weekend Confirmed podcast when he compared the ME franchise to paint-by-numbers: we can choose indigo, navy, sky or azure, but in the end we're still just picking blue.
Did anybody go full Renegade on their playthrough? I did, and I gotta say it was saddening [spoiler]having to shoot and kill both Moridin AND Wrex[/spoiler] :( Damn stupid Salarian Dalatrass, your cost to join my fleet was too damn high. I hope I can stick it to her when I go through playing Paragon!
Did anybody go full Renegade on their playthrough? I did, and I gotta say it was saddening [spoiler]having to shoot and kill both Moridin AND Wrex[/spoiler] :( Damn stupid Salarian Dalatrass, your cost to join my fleet was too damn high. I hope I can stick it to her when I go through playing Paragon!
For me, Anderson’s goodbye is where it ended. The stuff with the Catalyst just… You have to understand. Casey is really smart and really analytical. And the problem is that when he’s not checked, he will assume that other people are like him, and will really appreciate an almost completely unemotional intellectual ending. I didn’t hate it, but I didn’t love it.
And then, just to be a dick… what was SUPPOSED to happen was that, say you picked “Destroy the Reapers”. When you did that, the system was SUPPOSED to look at your score, and then you’d show a cutscene of Earth that was either:
a) Very high score: Earth obviously damaged, but woo victory
b) Medium score: Earth takes a bunch of damage from the Crucible activation. Like dropping a bomb on an already war-ravaged city. Uh, well, maybe not LIKE that as much as, uh, THAT.
c) Low score: Earth is a cinderblock, all life on it completely wiped out
I have NO IDEA why these different cutscenes aren’t in there. As far as I know, they were never cut. Maybe they were cut for budget reasons at the last minute. I don’t know. But holy crap, yeah, I can see how incredibly disappointing it’d be to hear of all the different ending possibilities and have it break down to “which color is stuff glowing?” Or maybe they ARE in, but they’re too subtle to really see obvious differences, and again, that’s… yeah.
The entire rest of the game was written with a writing team. Everyone bouncing ideas off each other, making sure shit made sense. The ending was written by one arrogant prick who decided to do it solo, and that's why it's terribad. It's not anything clever like an indoctrination or anything like that.
Yep, I've seen evidence from 2 difference sources, including one supposed email from one of the writers on the team that nothing ended up how it was planned. Sounds like Casey Hudson is basically the sole scapegoat here. Well, hope he has fun working his ass off to get it fixed. I'm sure it was a nice talk with the boss after this all blew up in his face.
Yep, I've seen evidence from 2 difference sources, including one supposed email from one of the writers on the team that nothing ended up how it was planned. Sounds like Casey Hudson is basically the sole scapegoat here. Well, hope he has fun working his ass off to get it fixed. I'm sure it was a nice talk with the boss after this all blew up in his face.
I saw some stuff about those as well (someone posted a link to 4chan) but I'm leery as Jessica Merizan came on and debunked them as being fakes by people with no association with Bioware.
For the people who dont know, Drew Karpyshyn was the lead writer on ME1 and ME2 (though he is slated for lead writer on ME2, he was working majority on Dragon Age). He also wrote 3 of the 4 ME Novels (all the good ones)
I thought the status of the Collector Base at the end of ME2 was going to have an impact on ME3? I could have sworn the page I had bookmarked originally have the endings broken up into 2 streams; one with the base intact, the other with it destroyed. Now there is nothing about it?
I thought the status of the Collector Base at the end of ME2 was going to have an impact on ME3? I could have sworn the page I had bookmarked originally have the endings broken up into 2 streams; one with the base intact, the other with it destroyed. Now there is nothing about it?
From what I understand that decision changes the amount of rubble you see in the end video, and lowers the cost of one of the destruction endings to let Shepard live to 4k instead of 5k, but that's it. No actual story impact or anything like that.
When I first beat ME3, I was disappointed. Then I got frustrated at the developers. But now, I just ignore the ending. I love the game, but it doesn't have any meaning. Without a good ending, the whole game falls flat.
I just did the Rannoch mission on my Insanity playthrough. Tali made a comment that she was coming with me. I wanted to tell her, "No. Stay here on your homeworld. If you come with me, the mass relays will be destroyed and you will never see this planet again." But I couldn't say that because it wasn't an option. Honestly, it's better if I let the Geth kill all the Quarians and let Tali jump off the cliff. She and the Reaper can share a grave. Do I give a damn if Mordin sacrifices himself to save the Krogan? No, it's more fun to kill him. Why not? It doesn't mean anything. The scene where he tries desperately to get to the button to push it, only to die a mere inches away is actually more entertaining. Doesn't matter, because the mass relays, the Geth, and all technology will soon be destroyed, sending everyone back into the 20th Century.
EA this morning announced Mass Effect 3's "Extended Cut" DLC, which adds to the game's ending and will arrive for free at some point this summer. According to the publisher, the content will add "additional cinematic sequences and epilogue scenes," which will apparently offer fans "further clarity to the ending of Mass Effect 3" and "deeper insights into how their personal journey concludes."
Maybe by the time I finish ME3 single player, they'll have a 'real' ending to the game ? :lol:
I believe I will watch all future Bioware DLC on youtube before I purchase it.
I wonder how Mac Walters and the writers feel about this? I mean, they basically got outwritten by a bunch of fans. Time to polish up that resume.
The game itself is freaking amazing.It's just the last part of the game that people really hated.Did Bioware even pay attention to the previous games?Where are the results from all the decisions you made from before?What were they thinking with that ending?ME games are all about the decisions and the end of ME3 you didn't have a choice to make your own decision.Do you really think Shepard would not question the little shit just a little bit?Again they didn't give you that choice.Total bullshit.
I totally agree with the Shepard questioning the Starchild. I was - and still am after 2 viewings - fine with MY ending. All of the stuff that was presented fits relatively well within the established lore of the ME universe, it was just executed very clumsily. I just wanted to ask 'well, if you created the Reapers, who/what exactly are YOU?'
As for results from decisions? They are all in there, but to a much more subtler degree. If anyone dies at the end of ME2, they are not in ME3, and thus not available to recruit as a war asset, thus making your job of increasing that number even harder, and locking out certain ending choices. (Hell, synthesis isn't even an on the table if it isn't high enough and if you are too Renegade.) There's a whole sequence with Conrad Verner that if you hadn't purchased a specific vendor license from ME1 you wouldn't get that war asset either.
Did you know that there is a possibility that Tali will commit suicide? Or that the entire Quarian race can be wiped out before you even get to Thessia? All based on previous actions from the previous games. If you saved the council in ME1, you see the Destiny Ascension in one of the cut scenes at the end.
I said this on another forum, but I think the issue behind the issue is that the ME3 ending revealed the ILLUSION of choice that we thought we had throughout this entire series. Bioware pulled a great magic trick in making us think that our choices really mattered, but in the end, we are merely choosing between slightly different paths to the same end. And alot of folks are pissed off that the Wizard is really just an old man turning a crank and that the sausage is not really sausage.
Garnett Lee said it best on the last Weekend Confirmed podcast when he compared the ME franchise to paint-by-numbers: we can choose indigo, navy, sky or azure, but in the end we're still just picking blue.
Did anybody go full Renegade on their playthrough? I did, and I gotta say it was saddening [spoiler]having to shoot and kill both Moridin AND Wrex[/spoiler] :( Damn stupid Salarian Dalatrass, your cost to join my fleet was too damn high. I hope I can stick it to her when I go through playing Paragon!
Me, although I haven't finished yet.
I did that on my first playthrough. It was sad, but glad the developers did that. It was one of the better moments in the game.
Looks like the indoctrination theory is a bust.
http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/355/index/10492648
That guy had to edit his post and take the pics out, I've got 2 of em here
http://i.imgur.com/mlgBA.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/B3lTt.jpg
http://geek.pikimal.com/2012/03/22/controversy-erupts-over-mass-effect-3...
The entire rest of the game was written with a writing team. Everyone bouncing ideas off each other, making sure shit made sense. The ending was written by one arrogant prick who decided to do it solo, and that's why it's terribad. It's not anything clever like an indoctrination or anything like that.
Yep, I've seen evidence from 2 difference sources, including one supposed email from one of the writers on the team that nothing ended up how it was planned. Sounds like Casey Hudson is basically the sole scapegoat here. Well, hope he has fun working his ass off to get it fixed. I'm sure it was a nice talk with the boss after this all blew up in his face.
I saw some stuff about those as well (someone posted a link to 4chan) but I'm leery as Jessica Merizan came on and debunked them as being fakes by people with no association with Bioware.
Like she would know. She's an hourly employee who basically does nothing but update Facebook and respond to people on Twitter.
She's the Community Manager. I think she has more of an inside track.
I dont know if anyone noticed or if this was posted, but Drew Karpyshyn left Bioware right before ME3 started drumming up and launched.
I dont know if it had to do with a clash in ideas but i found this which was interesting.
http://www.strategyinformer.com/news/17086/mass-effect-writer-drew-karpyshyn-reveals-original-mass-effect-3-endings
For the people who dont know, Drew Karpyshyn was the lead writer on ME1 and ME2 (though he is slated for lead writer on ME2, he was working majority on Dragon Age). He also wrote 3 of the 4 ME Novels (all the good ones)
I thought the status of the Collector Base at the end of ME2 was going to have an impact on ME3? I could have sworn the page I had bookmarked originally have the endings broken up into 2 streams; one with the base intact, the other with it destroyed. Now there is nothing about it?
From what I understand that decision changes the amount of rubble you see in the end video, and lowers the cost of one of the destruction endings to let Shepard live to 4k instead of 5k, but that's it. No actual story impact or anything like that.
When I first beat ME3, I was disappointed. Then I got frustrated at the developers. But now, I just ignore the ending. I love the game, but it doesn't have any meaning. Without a good ending, the whole game falls flat.
I just did the Rannoch mission on my Insanity playthrough. Tali made a comment that she was coming with me. I wanted to tell her, "No. Stay here on your homeworld. If you come with me, the mass relays will be destroyed and you will never see this planet again." But I couldn't say that because it wasn't an option. Honestly, it's better if I let the Geth kill all the Quarians and let Tali jump off the cliff. She and the Reaper can share a grave. Do I give a damn if Mordin sacrifices himself to save the Krogan? No, it's more fun to kill him. Why not? It doesn't mean anything. The scene where he tries desperately to get to the button to push it, only to die a mere inches away is actually more entertaining. Doesn't matter, because the mass relays, the Geth, and all technology will soon be destroyed, sending everyone back into the 20th Century.
http://www.joystiq.com/2012/04/05/mass-effect-3-extended-cut-dlc-free-this-summer-offers-furth/
EA this morning announced Mass Effect 3's "Extended Cut" DLC, which adds to the game's ending and will arrive for free at some point this summer. According to the publisher, the content will add "additional cinematic sequences and epilogue scenes," which will apparently offer fans "further clarity to the ending of Mass Effect 3" and "deeper insights into how their personal journey concludes."
It better explain why Joker, and whoever else it showed during the end scene, ditched my ass to go gallivanting around the galaxy.
They're going to change the ending with a free download this summer, more here
http://www.2old2play.com/forum/gaming-forums/rpg-gaming/mass-effect-seri...
A re-write of the ending. http://ferretbrain.com/articles/article-853